


This is how the world ends

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And in love, Champion Shiro, Dark Shiro - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Galra Emperor Keith, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Memory Loss, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Riddick AU, They were both human once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-03-21 08:30:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13737072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Keith has defeated Lotor, and by all rules of engagement is now the new emperor of the Galra Empire. Shiro has fallen into the Champion's mindset, completely and utterly loyal to the Galra and its new Emperor. He is the reason Keith accepts his new role, on the very hopes he might get Shiro back. He never intended to fall for the Champion. . .A short little piece based on theprojectava's Emperor!Keith/Champion!Shiro AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, when I first saw this AU come out I was absolutely in love but [this](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/170777610518/the-emperors-downfall-the-world-was-on-fire-and) set of images just blew me away and I had to do something. Now that I am back from con things, I had the chance to sit down and write for this, as [the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-2hUmoaPfU) used here is very dear to my heart because of Amaranthine, and now I'm even more in love because of this AU.
> 
> Please go love on [theprojectava](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com) because this whole AU is fabulous (as is so much of what she does)!

__

_There are moments when he touches me, and it’s like my whole world falls to right once more._

It began with a look, one he had known for years, the sort that put a curl to his lips and a fire in his core. 

It began with a look, one he hadn’t seen for months, lost to the oblivion of eyes that glittered like gold melted down for purposes other than gilding and coin. Sharp as a sword’s edge, just as devastating when used with skill. He had stood there, reluctant as always to seat himself upon the throne, and when his gaze had met the Champion’s, whose attention was forever fixed to him like blind devotion was to zealotry, he had seen it. 

That look. 

The one that made him think not all was ever lost, but like so much in life was simply misplaced only to be found when you least expected it.

A simple glance that whispered of the man he had known and still loved even as Keith recognized it as the Champion’s and the Champion’s alone. This was not Shiro in love; it was Galra’s favored Champion bound to every bit of Emperor that Keith had become. 

Love makes monsters of us all. 

It was what Keith thought when he first let the Champion see him naked in his private chambers. What had started as routine, for an emperor never undressed himself, had turned into something else. Every glance of the Champion’s fingertips brought a memory to the surface of his mind, every touch a lure that Keith’s desire couldn’t keep itself from hooking on. And he knew the very point where he lost himself: when his head tipped back and his eyes closed and the Champion’s hands found their way around his body to unbutton his pants. 

When for a moment, Keith could imagine it was Shiro even as he tasted the Champion on his lips. 

And he knew. . .he knew they both were inseparable. Just as he knew he loved them both, because they had remained one and the same, and the real lie had always been in the way he had convinced himself it could be otherwise, that it had once been otherwise. Maybe at one time, long ago, before the word Kerberos had ever touched Shiro’s lips. 

Maybe then, but never after. 

That first time was like coming home. When the Champion kissed him, Keith’s body sung with the remembrance of those lips. His back arched against a body familiar; his words murmured of wants that only one person had ever been able to fulfill for him. When the Champion touched him, Keith saw the way the world had always blurred into grays, how black and white was nothing more than a construct needed for those who only knew how to drown. 

The Champion touched him like he meant _something_. Revered more than a god, he was the very nucleus of his universe. Keith was the black and white of the Champion’s world, and the Champion was a man who would gladly drown if Keith told him all the ways in which he could do it. Just as readily as he would scorch the earth and disembowel whole fleets of their enemies for him. If Keith spoke the word, the Champion would rise to his cause. 

But what Keith said in these moments brought the fires to his own lands. When he moaned, his Champion fucked harder. When he whimpered for release, his Champion gave it to him. 

When he murmured about love, his Champion worshipped with a fervor that singed even the most steel-cased of resolves.

Over time, that too became routine. The Emperor led his forces, the Champion unflappable in his determination to execute every order with ruthless precision. And when the weight of his battles was washed away beneath running streams of too-hot water, Keith returned to the world and opened himself up to the love of a man who had always been his. Even as Shiro, Keith had known this, and now as Champion, he was certain of it. 

This man, straddled between his thighs and grinning at him like he was starlight strung with every possible hope, was his. Emperor or Keith, this man had woven every fiber of his heart into him, and Keith knew it was his duty to care for those fragments the Champion had forgotten. How could he have honestly avoided falling in love with this man?

No more than swallows could deny the pull of South in the winter.

So, when the Champion moved beneath him, Keith moved with him. Their rhythm always varied, but the tenderness the Champion employed in handling him never changed. For a man who would tear planets inside out for him, he never marked Keith. He would lap at his battle wounds, make him cry out for more when pleasure peaked, but the Champion never bruised, never broke. Not his Emperor. Where Shiro would have delighted in leaving hickeys that bloomed in little-seen places, to pick out later during a private shower and tease Keith with the promise of more, the Champion preferred reverence. The adoration displayed by both men was a stark duality, a constant reminder that Keith knew two men, both of whom had his heart. 

One of them he would have to betray. 

That was a thought he tried not to think about. Instead, he allowed himself to be pulled under by the heat of the Champion’s gaze. Because he loved the way his body responded to each look, every touch, the same way that coming home - _truly_ home - was like taking shelter from the world at large. When he was in bed with the Champion, Keith’s body told him the stories held by memories even as new ones were carved into its walls. 

And so the lines tangled, neat little knots forming now in their red strings, and Keith could no longer deny that his heart beat a little faster when he heard his Champion whisper into his ear or he saw that curve of his lips when the Emperor dismissed his generals for the night. Couldn't deny that his bed didn’t feel as empty anymore and neither did his soul.

*

“You can see it, can’t you?” Keith asks quietly.

Behind him, the Champion rests his head on Keith’s shoulder. There’s no reply at first, just them there in bed, the walls of his bedchamber turned transparent to allow the glow of another galaxy’s sun to rise before them. It spills reds and golds across the sheets, like an overabundance of cosmic jewels, and something in the sight of it has the Champion pulling him closer. Keith rests his back against his bare chest and tips his head against the Champion's. Cheek to cheek, they watch the sun burn in the distance.

“What do you see?”

The Champion’s voice is a little gruffer than Shiro’s, always with this sandpapery edge of satisfaction to it after they’ve fucked. Keith won’t ever admit it, but he likes it, the difference that is. It’s like drawing lines in the sand.

“The beginning and the end of everything.”


	2. Cosmic Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it seems there may be some more of these things! As always, all credit goes to the amazing [theprojectava](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/) for her Emperor AU storyline <3 
> 
> This chapter is based on this [set of images](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/170508900593/nothing-but-my-aching-soul-when-you-and-i-were), and since it goes with the male version of Young and Beautiful, I thought I would share [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG-0F-WF9oU) as well as it's also wonderful.

Every story has a beginning. After all, you cannot go anywhere unless you are somewhere first, right? 

Keith remembers where this story began. Back when he learned how to take flight. Not the sort that the Garrison hailed and other students envied, but the kind of flight that made him realize who he was, that he actually existed in this world. Was a bonafide being within it, with worth worthy of the recognition. 

It hit him all at once like an arctic blast smacking you in the face as you step out the door on a mid-winter morning. Things like that wake you up like nothing else when the closed-off comfort of a former life is now suddenly assaulted by the world that had always been standing just outside of all that you were. All it took was the right person knocking and the courage to step outside of yourself.

Or into yourself. 

_Existing_ is a funny thing like that. It reminds him of these crabs that could switch houses like people did coats or hairstyles. He doesn’t remember what they were scientifically called, but he remembers sitting in a classroom with his secondhand clothes and high-tops with tattered tongues and frayed laces while the video rambled on about ocean life. They’d have to write a report on it later (he doesn’t recall what he eventually ended up writing about), but he can still see the moment when one crab simply shucked off its current shell, vacated without formal notice, and took up residence in a newer one. Something that fit it a little bit better, and he remembers thinking that humans don’t get that luxury. Not unless Fortune shows you favor, and he was not one of Fortune’s sons. 

He didn’t need to be though. 

They were standing at the beginning, him and Shiro. Hours ago they had left the Garrison’s walls behind, set free by a flimsy excuse written on the off-white, too-stiff government regulated paper that all orders with weight were delivered on. Keith hadn’t bothered to ask Shiro what reason he had concocted and who he had gotten to back him on it because he had been too wrapped up in his elation. Shiro had chosen him, to no one’s real surprise (because there’s something about Talent that lends excuses to favoritism and Keith knowingly accepted that lie for the other lie it covered up), to go out with him. He hasn’t told Shiro how he feels though as if in admitting such a thing out loud, it might settle in their universe like a star about to go supernova. Relationships, Keith thinks, are akin to putting a timer on your heart and just waiting for the other person to detonate the bomb you constructed with your own hands. 

Shiro makes him think _they_ might work a little differently than the world has told him these things go. Then again, Shiro is something different altogether. He puts a flutter in Keith’s heart and has blown open the doors to his existence, and all Keith can see now is mile after mile of uninterrupted potential. 

That’s how this story starts. With the two of them standing under a desert sunset and Shiro holding a hand out to him.

“Let’s go.”

Keith took that hand, and he took his heart, and he believed, for once, that the universe gave you some things without the intention of ever taking them away.

*

Settling sounds like a heartbeat echoing yours. It comes with the warmth of a touch that finds comfort in the way fingers slide between the spaces of his own, an arm around his waist, a smile that whispers of memories so entrenched into the soul that nothing in this universe could dig them out. Shiro doesn’t remember everything from the last year, but he knows Keith.

He has always known Keith. 

And that is something Keith holds closer to him than his own life. 

As they walk the hallways of the castle, they always find a way to obliterate the space that stands between them. Crushed by the gravity of what they are. They are dark matter; so much of what they are seems invisible to the world around them but is undeniably there. He and Shiro. . .they have weight. Solid, steady weight. They are made of the thing that defies logic and holds worlds together. 

Keith knows that Shiro loves him. And he knows that he has loved Shiro long before the _I love you_ ’s fell from their lips. He still hears those words, murmured against his ear before a mission, spilling out as reckless as rainwater from a burst gutter as Shiro writhes beneath him. Keith doesn’t know which of those he loves the most, though he admits there’s something more to them now. Because it had taken weeks for Shiro to gather the courage to utter them again. Maybe he had thought they were broken too, after all that time apart and he a different man from the one who had promised to come back to Keith at the Kerberos launch site. But every touch, every look between them showed Shiro that love like theirs is not so easily broken. 

Love like theirs bellows at the universe in complete defiance to every scheme, every schism that would try to rend them apart. Their love is not for the weak of mind and heart, and Keith has known Shiro to be neither of those things. Though he is a man, with his faults and his flaws, and this tentativeness that had surprised them both in the wake of all the Galra had done to him. But the moment they saw that (no words to define it, just a look where fear had flooded Shiro’s gaze only to be drained by the acceptance in Keith’s), all of their uncertainty dissolved like salt swallowed by the sea. Keith could still taste it in that first kiss, feel it in the questions left by Shiro’s hands upon his body. And then, with a little time and far more trust, they fell to muscle-memory, their bodies reclaiming what had always been theirs. 

He likes these quiet moments, however. The ones with just them, walking in hallways large enough for their ambitions for this universe while they fall back into the people they had always been with one another. Quiet, contained moments. The very things that make visions of the past so prominent. . .and so painful at times. 

The things you remember when the world starts to crack at the seams and you feel like you’re just waiting for it to swallow you without remorse or lament.

*

This isn’t where their story ends, but it is the place where another one begins. That’s how Keith likes to think about it, like some interlude in this great span of existence we call a lifetime. He knows how they began, and he remembers how he thought it would all end, and this?

This is just a hiccup in the narrative they’ve been writing across the universe. 

But they survived Kerberos. And the Galra. And the dissolution of the idea of peace brought about by the Black Paladin’s hands. 

Keith doesn’t think of this as a new era, but one that has been slowly dying. He’s only resuscitated it enough to keep his own dreams alive. So, he’s donned the armor of his once-upon-a-time enemies, and he’s left the door to his heart ajar. He couldn’t fully close it, after all. Not when it’s Shiro he’s still waiting for.

And Keith will wait, and he will fight for the things no one else can seem to see, not even Shiro himself at this moment. He tolerates the term _Emperor_ , tames his tongue just enough to call Shiro _Champion_ without the bitter edge, and gets used to the distance that’s grown between them as wide as a chasm post-earthquake. It feels that large to him at times, especially when he glances back and doesn’t see Shiro grinning at him, his steps hurrying to close the space that’s divided them. He still gets acknowledged though. It comes with a curt nod and a smile that never reaches his eyes. 

Smiles like that feel as brittle as bone hollowed out by the horrors in life. No density left to them, just a shell of what they had once been. Breathe on them, and you’ll see them crumble. Nothing more than a lie unable to support itself. 

The Champion can’t lie to him. Shiro could, but never did. Not intentionally at least. But this whole thing feels like a farce, and one day, Keith thinks the universe is going to call him out on it. Maybe it’ll come in the form of his had-been teammates. Or some cataclysmic betrayal that leaves his Champion, and all that had been and could still be Shiro, heaving dying breaths at his feet. 

That’s a real fear. That all of this could be for nothing, and in the end, he’ll have nothing. He’ll end his story just the way he began it, as a man with nothing more than a name and a will to fight and nothing to really fight for. 

When he glances back, their eyes don’t meet. His expression falters. Keith can feel it as acutely as he does the pang in his heart when Shiro continues to keep his guard up, ever vigilant against all the things that might bring harm to his Emperor yet missing the most obvious threat of them all. There’s hesitation in his next step, his foot not quite meeting the ground but hovering in the air as uncertain as a hummingbird before a spider’s web. His mouth feels dry, and Keith realizes anything he could have said, the words that carried real worth, had died in his throat. So, he turns back to the path that leads them to the throne room and exhales.

“Let’s go.”


	3. Blood Price

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another chapter that I've been meaning to work on forever, but it's based on [this series of art](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/178770452143/even-your-emotions-have-an-echo-in-so-much-space) from [theprojectava](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com) (also at twitter [here](https://twitter.com/TheProjectAVA)) for her Emperor AU again. It's so good, you guys ;;

He remembers. . .

. . .remembers. . .

. . .remembers. . .

That moment when a life drank the same breath as a death and forever changed his world.

*

He can be oddly gentle, the Champion. Keith thinks it must have been something relearned after all those months of not being _Shiro_. Less mechanized, more human. And Keith knows him to still be human - he bleeds like all the rest of them. That same vibrant scarlet, the color that puts a small panic scurrying free in his lungs every time he sees it. Wondering if the hurts would be enough to kill this time.

Wondering, more and more often, who it was his Champion had sent to their demise. 

Because the battles could not be avoided any more than one’s sight could help the momentary blindness from gazing at the sun. Sometimes, the world simply went white like that, just a heartbeat’s worth of seconds, and when everything fell back into place again, all the colors, all the structures, all the chaos defined by fire and smoke, you realize that some endings dragged on longer than others. 

“Commander. . . .”

Keith sucks in a breath as fingers brush along his jawline. 

“Emperor. . .”

He shuts his eyes as thumb finds his chin and tips his head. To position it perfectly. 

“ _Keith_. . .”

And as lips meet his own in a kiss, Keith feels the echo of a heart resounding against his. Calling, calling. . .reminding him that not all is lost. But isn’t that why he’s here? Not in this bed, but in bearing the mantle of his enemies, throwing gauntlets down before his friends (former, probably now, for he’s certain there are lines that had been drawn, and he had well overstepped those boundaries). It only takes the smallest glimmer of hope to set men on impossible journeys and keep their hearts beating well past fate-ordained expiration dates. 

At this moment, however, Keith hears his name and the past life that infused it once with such love. He hears Shiro, in a voice a bit rougher than the one he had known, but still the same. Too much the same. And he hears his Champion, yearning for all that Keith is - Emperor, Commander. . .man. Everything that is loved. 

Everything that he would kill and die for. 

And how could his heart not break for that? How could it not call out to the one still hammering life out in Shiro’s chest? He reaches up, sliding his arms around shoulders, feeling the network of scars like a galaxy wrought over skin, and tells himself the stories of everything Takashi Shirogane has lived through. Being the Emperor has made him privy to certain information on the Galra, which included not just their ranks, their bases, their ideas of order and how best to tame the elements of chaos, but also, their records. Keith knew of the experiments; he knew of the Arena too. And even if Shiro saw them as nothing more than blips on his timeline to becoming the Champion of today (nothing to be feared or regretted, but an integral part of why he had become _strong_ ), it did not mean that he forgot. 

Because he stills remembers standing beneath a desert’s rising sun and hearing the pain of forgotten memories in Shiro’s voice. He couldn’t recall them then, but looking at his Galra-tech arm had told him enough. One doesn’t lose their right hand without a certain amount of hurt to help scar down the loss. 

With his touch, a low growl made of pleasure works itself into the silence. Keith shudders at the sound of it. His chin is tipped again, and this time, he opens his eyes to gray and gold and devotion staring back at him. 

Not a plea, but still a need. 

And Keith gets it. He can’t let go either.

*

It all ends too soon.

There are times when they’re awakened from this reverie of tangled bodies and deconstructed emotions to the sounds of alarm, while at others, like today, it’s a more natural process. Sleep simply losing its hold as awareness makes its claims on his mind once more. But for Keith, they’re the same process, a jarring return to reality. 

Where before he might have expected to linger in bed, soaking in the warmth of Shiro’s body and the soft blush of embarrassment spreading over his cheeks as their eyes first meet on that morning after, here, he only finds a stare fixed not on him, but on the door and everything beyond it, looking for dangers in the world that Keith seems blissfully unaware of. It’s not that he doesn’t know of those plots against him, from within his own ranks (most dissenters haven already been culled by his Champion now) to those of the greater universe, but that within the confines of his bedroom, he had hoped to keep those life-sustaining moments between them a little longer.

The ones where Shiro is more Shiro and less Champion. 

But the cold is already creeping into the bed, and Keith knows what that means. He showers, under watch. Dresses, under watch. And insists that his Champion do the same, always coming down to an order given rather than a request indulged. With every passing minute, their lives fold back into their former shape, not unlike an origami crane but with far less beauty (unless one considers ruthless efficiency the pinnacle of beauty and in that case, his Champion would have been the most resplendent representation of that). And with every passing second, Keith sutures up his heart along the same scarred fault lines, where night after night, he consistently lets it bleed out for the man who defies the fates like some Greek hero of old. 

Another tale to be told, wrought with more human fragility than the hero himself can ever see. But that’s what happens when you believe yourself something more than what you’ve ever been. To him, Shiro had always been a man worth more than so many others of his own class. He had never needed to become this.

Galra perfection. A human disaster. 

“I don’t understand why we’re talking with them again.”

Keith steps in behind his Champion, whose gaze again is fixed on the door leading out to the hallway. The one that will carry Keith back to his Empire duties.

“They’re our friends, Shiro. . .” he says, hoping something might rekindle in Shiro’s heart.

“They stopped being that the moment they opposed you, Emperor.”

Sometimes, the light never catches. It sputters out, more flicker than flash, and it throws darkness across a soul. Keith feels his breath harden in his throat and the warm sting at the corner of his eyes, all too aware of the hurt that was just inflicted. 

Not all things are lost, they say, but some are harder to salvage than others, and always with a price. There’s not enough coin in the galaxy to bring Shiro back, but Keith thinks there may be enough blood. That’s the true game of politics, how to bleed as little as possible for all the things you want. 

For Shiro though? Keith would open a vein and let it flow.


End file.
